Shougang Steel Controls Huiyong

There is good reason to believe that China's largest steel company, Shougang Steel - an SOE (State Owned Enterprise) - is the company behind Huiyong and Dehua. Whether or not that is the case, they have deep pockets and are setting up metallurgical coal mines. Their market can only be a large Chinese steel company. Ergo, some large SOE is their backer.

as high-level an insider as one might hope to become

What was that thud? Oh, just another tonne of corruption hitting the Canadian doorstep.

My colleagues and I joke about the end of the world on Dec 21st, 2012. The end of Canada began some time ago.

Christy Clark

and her government as well as Harper and the federal government have demonstrated once again that their promises of scrutiny mean less than a fart in a hurricane.

Its all just boiler-plate blah-blah-blah because they don't think anyone will watch them. And apparently half the population don't.

Heard the interview on CBC

Heard the interview on CBC Radio this morning with lil' Ms. Christy. The interviewer, 'Rick the Bluff' was pathetic. How come our politicians are getting off so lightly with these 'end-of-the-year interviews?

van isle

It could be because it is the season of goodwill and all that. It is more likely because if they don't act nice they won't get another interview. Why they think that is such a bad thing, is beyond me. The CBC has become more about fluff than hard news or investigative reporting. On any given day that I listen to the CBC, I usually end up switching off because the topic is some piece of fluff that wouldn't rate a mention at the local Tim Hortons.

CHINA TAKES OVER CANADA ONE PIECE AT A TIME

This whole debacle just gets worse and worse. Either our government officials are stupid, or as CSIS has implied, they are being courted (who knows how) by Chinese operatives to get the right decisions made.

This is not about race; it is about economic imperialism, and the takeover of significant chunks of our country by CHINA.

Wake up Canada. Don't stand for this.

Federal subsidies to set up HD Mining in Canada

One question I have not seen dealt with is the usual federal government enticement of subsidies given to multinationals to set up operations in Canada. Of course this would also include infrastructure costs in roads, services and living quarters. Too bad we don't have a system of tying any subsidized aid to actual jobs created for Canadians (dollar for dollar). Instead corporate subsidies are a voluntary type debt, they may be paid back or deferred over and over and over again. Curious too bad individuals can't defer their taxes in the same way.

comments posted but possible not printed?

Just curious as to whether my comments will in fact be printed?

Hello, margsview

Not sure if you can see your comments, but I can.

So Canadian based companies can now

go to China and use a Chinese front to return to Canada and be exempted from all regulations and common decency.

Thumb up/down

Can the Tyee add the ability to agree or disagree to the comments at the end of an article without logging in? It makes it a lot quicker to participate when you don't have time to login unless you want to comment. I would be giving the thumbs up to all the comments made on this article. The Tyee seems to be the only BC publication with the guts to give this great coverage on the purchase of Canada by China. Good work! Keep it up!

Secrecy usually means fear or shame

Since the second world war the governments of the English speaking world have become secretive and very touchy about letting their citizens know what they do. They claim various justifications, such as "national security" or proprietary information. Recently the BC government has been claiming copyright of their public documents as a way of preventing free information reaching it's owners.

I have been quite convinced in my own analysis that the real meaning of these dodges is that they are increasingly compromised by criminal associations and behaviour, and are well aware that if some of what they do were known, they might well be dragged bodily from their offices by angry citizens, and run out of town in disgrace.

5% sounds like the big payoff to me. A business whose receptionist won't identify the people she works for on the phone is not likely to be an honest one, or even a legal one.

These guys have clearly seen an episode of 60 Minutes someplace, and know what happens.

Not only...

Not only should this situation have been prevented from developing by the Provincial Government, long before Temporary Worker permits were being applied for, but the whole issue of developing new COAL mines in B.C. is a conversation that needs to happen.

As B.C. residents (threatened with unwanted pipelines and coastal tankers) and Canadian citizens, we need to question the contradiction that the development and acceleration of Bitumen extraction in Alberta is being JUSTIFIED as a less destructive environmental alternative to the COAL extraction and burning that CHINA would otherwise be 'forced' to use for their energy 'needs'!

We can't stop China from mining and burning up every crumb of their own coal if that government chooses to do so, but what kind of sense does it make to roll out the red carpet to that government to invade Canada, extract, and ship back to China, Canadian coal as well?

You can't have it both ways, letting Chinese State Owned Corps trash B.C. to ship their Bitumen from Alberta to China to reduce environmental damage from Chinese coal with one hand and then with the other hand letting China trash B.C. to extract coal to ship to China too! And now it seems the Chinese Corps want to bring their own workers to Canada, who may send a significant part of their wages back to support their families in China and the Chinese economy, not spend them in the Canadian communities the mines are in.

I would say exactly the same thing if the current imperialist expansionist government were invading Canada from Russia or the U.S.A. or wherever. In fact, I see the historical British invasion of North America in the same light. Maybe the current mess is karma coming home to roost, but that's no excuse to remain silent and unresistant, and therefore complicit. It was wrong then, it's wrong now.

We need to work hard to restore the imbalances that have already been created, not create more or allow complacency to again lead to deep injustices that will bring great suffering in the coming generations.

Note to posters:

It took me quite some time to figure this out myself, but I keep seeing others confused by not seeing their comment on the screen after posting it, so I thought I'd suggest to everyone that if they click on "All" ("Best" is usually the default setting on the comments thread) before they write and post their comment, it will appear for them as soon as they've posted it. Otherwise they have change the setting to "All" afterward and then scroll back down to the bottom of the thread to see new posts.

Also, I had a great deal of frustration when logging in after reading an article and then returning to the article by going back a page...and finding no place to type in my comment! Of course, it was because the page was being viewed as it 'existed in the past,' when I wasn't logged in, so I finally figured out that I had to go back to the home page or to the email in my inbox and re-access the article in the internet 'present' ...

I hope this is helpful to someone.

Nothing to see here...

If you opened this mine with USW labour, benefits and pensions you would make little or no profit. That's all there is to it. Yet it sounds like they would like to somehow suspend the laws of economics...

Perhaps the union should be complaining instead about international coal prices being "too low"...

really kreditanstalt?

I guess the DOZENS Of other mines in BC are all operating at a loss then!

Come off it. You seem to be more loyal to China's evil regime than Canada. Really short sighted and I'd even say "chumpish". You wish to break unions more than do business with an honest government that doesn't kill dissdents and students.

A bulge of politicains in your pocket, or are you just happy to_

On Dec. 10, the very same day Mr Li of HD mines made his human rights claim, the National CBC aired two pieces in reference to Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW), one of which featured Mr Li multiple times, as if he is a spokesperson for the other miners.
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2314444600/?page=2
Two things struck me about the video, their very limited language skill. And that their hands lacked the musculature and roughness of heavy equipment operators. So, if you watch the video, listen and look, carefully.

Having taught 1000s of hours of English I can fairly judge Mr Li’s spoken use to be at level one or two. Perhaps his written English is better. But, it is unlikely with the skill-set demonstrated in this video that he could spontaneously understand and produce a ‘time phrase’ answer to a question posed in an emergency situation by a ‘First Responder’: How long has the fire been burning? Or “Were the fumes present when they began to lose consciousness?”

WCB cannot plausibly deny responsibility for approving skills which may put in harms way first responders because of basic skill-set failures, especially basic emergency communication failures.

I have friends who operate heavy equipment and their hands are coarse, like Hank Ron’s when you see him open the door of the model house for the CBC crew, thickened with long-used muscles. The fingers and skin, even more so, thicken with muscle and coarseness of heavy duty work.

Has HD imported mine workers or fine-fingered pen pushing professional agitators?

If Harper signs ChinaFIPPA, the foreign tribunal may adjudicate to reward full payments even if the actual work in the mines is blocked. The rewards are based on reasonable expectations, not actual work. 'Performance' 'Protection' 'Guarantees' are big words.

Llitigation is an industry in itself. its 'paperwork' costs to an economy can dwarf the industry it protects. Ever hear of divorce lawyers getting more than the litigants? Even to the point of bankruptcy.
FIPPAs, CETA, Nafta have 'unintended' consequences.

For Christmas this year let's wish all Canadian workers and businesses had such guarantees!

Cause, Who is looking out for whom?

There are nearly 500,000 TFW employed in Canada, most not protected by performance guarantees as they are employed by Tim Hortons type companies.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/12/11/f-temporary-foreign-worker-program-tim-hortons-canada.html

Like the lucky ChinaFIPPA folk! (say that three times quickly!)

Here's an novel idea for Kredit..

If you can't run a business with a profit in Canada and pay your fair share of taxes as well as pay union wages to Canadian workers, then get the hell out because you don't deserve to be in business here let alone have access to our resources. Hell you don't even deserve to breath the same air.

Oh yeah

CBC's work on this up there in Murray River was a complete joke.

Chinese mining companies

I suggest that Jeremy Nuttall or anyone else interested can search the records of the Registrar of Companies in Victoria.

That will tell you who the Directors and Officers are of the 3 companies, HD Mining International, Huiyong Holdings and Canadian Dehua Lvliang Internatioanl Mines.

It will also tell you where the registered and records office of the companies are located in B.C. and you can attend at the records office and find out who the shareholders are.

All very interesting to find out.

Good luck.

Why is only HD Mining putting

Why is only HD Mining putting up the capital to fund this mine?

Didn't any Canadian miners show any interest? If not, why not? Did a government interfere? Or was it a potential profitability problem?

'Leverage' is the 21st century's biggest four letter word

Archimedes said, 'If you give me a lever and a place to stand, I can move the world.

In the west a company's valuation, by stocks etc. is gauged on quarter to quarter projected performance expectations. Short distance performance.

So, for example, RIM's value shifts quite quickly as it meets or fails to meet forecasts.

The Asia markets measure the old way, year on year. Long distance performance.

Think of the body of a runner: A sprinter's body and training is very different from a long distance runner's body and training.

So, the global-open market is not as flat, not as equal, to all participants, as those who espouse its 'open for business' code-words.

The implication of a Asian based business based here is that is has a competitive advantage because it can cushion the vicissitudes of performance over a longer timeline than its western counterpart.

Very unfair, but may go to answer why HDmining is investing here. It seems some folks like to court aggressive types more than they do their homegrown, no?

Maybe some folks (thePM of Chainada) like to dream of moving the world, rather than steward responsible movements in it.

liberal support and indores this scam

Why don't the BC liberals train young Canadian taxpayers and voters people to be trades people.,is he discriminating against Canadians china the worst polluter in he world here in canada terrible If politicians are going to sell off the rights to those riches that is one thing. But for Canadians not to get even the benefit of the jobs to extract those resources that is entirely unacceptable. Corporations want "temp. foreign workers" because they can pay them less than people who reside in Canada. Its back to the days of Lord Dunsmuir when they paid miners from China half of what they paid Europeans & Canadians.canada knew mines were going to be opened. They had an obligation to provide training to Canadians first. They failed to do so. They most likely planned to bring in foreign workers all along because its cheaper.It's just another attempt to force unions out and lower wages.Witness the recent behavior of mining companies in B.C. that are bringing in workers to break the unions

@Dave50

It's not all about "lowering wages."

Since when is it the responsibility of private companies to "train" a local workforce before starting a business? Isn't that the responsibility of the workers themselves?

And how and why should a mine be opened and run if local labour costs make it unprofitable or less profitable to do so?

CSIS

I keep thinking about the comments made by the head of CSIS on CBC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhdkxP_wx8k

The rhetoric and spin afterwards was I think equally telling.

A few years ago someone on this website commented about a book that had been written in the U.S. about the average take for a politician being 10% for the sale of a crown asset, I had forgotten about the book but if anyone knows the name of it I would really like to read it.

After reading Andrew Nikiforuks The Tar Sands I am convinced that we are being swindled not just by elected politicians but also by bureaucrats and influence peddlars or lobbiest.

When I see an image of crispie clark I first feel revulsion then I feel anger towards her and everything she stands for!

shame on the bc liberals

why on did not the incompentant , BC liberals train young canadian taxpayers and voters people to be trades people.,is he discrimating again'st canadians china the worst polluter in he world here in canada terrible If politicians are going to sell off the rights to those riches that is one thing. But for Canadians not to get even the benefit of the jobs to extract those resources that is entirely unacceptable. Corporations want "temp. foreign workers" because they can pay them less than people who reside in Canada. Its back to the days of Lord Dunsmuir when they paid miners from China half of what they paid Europeans & Canadians.canada knew mines were going to be opened. They had an obligation to provide training to Canadians first. They failed to do so. They most likely planned to bring in foreign workers all along because its cheaper.It's just another attenpt to force unions out and lower wages.Witness the recent behaviour of mining companies in B.C. that are bringing in workers to break the unions. It means the taxpayer is stuck funding either EI or welfare, at the same time these foreign workers aren't paying into the tax coffers it's a double negative for our economy. The Chinese miners are NOT immigrants, they are low wage slaves to the Mining companies.Where is the government actually posting this information publicly? Is the government doing anything with schools and post-secondary institutions to try to address these "shortages"? Some employers complain that no one is willing to do the job, but then once you discover the pittance that they are offering it becomes obvious why. There should be a halt to the importation of any workers until a search within Canada has been exhausted, and that the salary being offered is reasonable. Our governments once again are selling Canadians out. Over the last 15 years in BC 55,000 middle income jobs forest related jobs have been lost to raw log export and automation. The bulk of these jobs have been at the expense of small town BC. Families have been forced to relocate in search of employment often accepting low paying employment with little option to otherwise. The government left these people to their own devices with no retraining opportunities knowing full well of the expected shortage of trades people. The hiring of foreign workers is a deplorable act and spit in the face to Canadians.

Earth to Kreditanstal

The mine is located in Canada. Not China. The resources belong to the people of Canada, not corporations in China.

Come to terms with those facts before you pollute the forum again.

the stupidest

It has been written that Chinese miners could use unions to save Chinese miners lives. HD Mining company uses Chinese workers to save dollars while ignoring the rules and regulations in place isn't nice.

Wouldn't want to do anything

Wouldn't want to do anything to challenge the conservative, mainline protectionist view, would I now, Frank?

And why are Canadian companies allowed to own mines in Mexico, Turkey, China (yes!) and a load of other government jurisdictions?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvercorp_Metals

Kreditanstalt

"Wouldn't want to do anything to challenge the conservative, mainline protectionist view..."

I just wish you'd try to challenge people's views of Libertarians as people who don't live in the real world.

You believe that its okay for a Chinese corporation to enter Canada, extract resources for its own market and use its own labour in doing so.

And the only reason you put forward for your support of this is that it might hurt a union worker.

Hate to tell you this but it isn't Chinese workers paying for your family's pensions, healthcare and education.

The governments are desperate

The governments are desperate for revenue due to their overspending, party on those social programs you treasure so much. You can safely bet there is already in place some kind of profit-sharing royalty or tax arrangement between the mine and the government, to allow this to go ahead.

On one hand we must remember that a resource has always gone to the party prepared to put up the capital, do the work and take the risks. However, I too would prefer more of the return going to residents here. Due to expectations around living standards here, Canadian labour is not economical; the alternative would be for the resources to stay in the ground, no tax revenue and no one to do anything.

Kredit

The resources should stay in the ground because we don't need them at this time. Future generations probably will.

When the resource is worth us digging it up, then we'll dig it up. Until then, its not worth it and there's no reason at all for us to give it away.

As for Cdn debt, its been growing faster ever since the growth in social programs was slowed. Which flies in the face of what you think happened.

@skywalker

You're purposely being disingenuous here.

It has nothing to do with nationality but everything to do with the high wages expected by Canadian labour.

Mexican and Turkish mines don't use Canadian labour simply because of the cost. Whether the Mexican, Chinese or Turkish governments would permit the use of foreign labour is a moot point.

But I'm sure Silvercorp's labour force in China includes very few - if any - Canadians for reasons of cost alone.

Kredit

Too bad for them. Even if Canadian labour rates were $10,000 an hour, our resources, our labour. Period. We don't owe China a living. They're the ones doing the begging for what we have.

Kredit

Try your theory at Macdonald's. Go in, tell them the Big Mac is too expensive, take it anyway but give them only 50 cents for it. Its the same deal as at Macdonald's, if you don't want to pay our price, you don't get the resources.

"Since when is it the

"Since when is it the responsibility of private companies to "train" a local workforce before starting a business? Isn't that the responsibility of the workers themselves?"

Pretty hard for the workers to train up whent he province cuts back on all the education programs needed to do so...basically so they have an excuse to bring in TFW. Also, your entire argument is moot because the workers have to be paid roughly the same wage as Canadians get on average...HD Mining has even bragged they are paying more, which is a lie, but that's beside the point.

SO essentially you're showing you know nothing, Kredit

If only Frank were right,

If only Frank were right, that "if you don't want to pay our price, you don't get the resources." In fact, our present governments are willing to sell at whatever price the buyer offers. So much for the business acumen of our conservative politicians.

Love the pissing match

It's nice to see kredit exposing his ignorance so completely

Lissen, there are Canadian mines all over the world that have been seized without compensation - Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, DRCongo - to name only a few. The list of Canadian-headquartered mining companies whose share prices have tanked after their mines were seized numbers nearly 60!

Governments the world over are waking up to the fact that elite foreign cadres that promise expertise and jobs in fact run away with profit and leave toxins and unemployment in their wake. They rarely hire locals - most often they're brought in from other mining jursidictions such as Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ghana, wherever they can get a modicum of expertise for cheap. And Canadians are indeed working overseas, including my cousin, mostly on the technical end providing guidance and training, assaying and designing and operating the mine.

Because you're right - when it comes to the rape of the land, use the cheapest labour you can to get it out of the ground.

I'm fully expecting Bob Friedland to have his huge new copper mine at Oyu Tolgoi seized from him once it's up and running. He's the biggest Canadian crook out there, and one Canada should truly be embarrassed about. Mongolia will simply nationalize it out from under his nose in a couple of years when the bugs are worked out.... at Chinese behest, of course.

Not that I'm playing the racism card or anything... or not like the Chinese do, at least.

Canadian workers don't

Canadian workers don't necessarily get paid more than anywhere else, but the deregulated "creation" of money in Canada inflated costs and prices by over 1,000% in the past 30 years and people have to make a living.

I was making $1,35/hr in my first job in Vancouver in 1955, and when I took apprenticeship I was getting .75 cents starting wage. My wife was making about the same.

Our rent for 2 nice rooms was $35/mo, our weekly foodbill under %20. and a gallon of gas for our Hillman Minx was about .27 cents.
We bought our first house for $500. down and $45.mo.

If we had the same prices today, we would also be "competitive", even in the weak minds of our "conservatives" and profit stealers and executives who are making 400 times more than their workers.

As a business owner since 1957, I know that profits are necessary for the survival of businesses, but at what level do they become simple and pure criminal actions and theft ?

Ed Deak.

The bottom line is that the

The bottom line is that the governments - with ballooning budget deficits - are soooo very desperate for revenue that they will sell anything at all for any possible income at all...

I think we can all agree on that...

Good one Kredit

"Mexican and Turkish mines don't use Canadian labour simply because of the cost. Whether the Mexican, Chinese or Turkish governments would permit the use of foreign labour is a moot point." But you were using the fact that Canadians "owned" mines in these places to justify China owning mines in Canada and using Chinese labour! That is a silly comparison and you just repeated above what I said in rebuttal. Now I know you are thoroughly confused, disingenuous or obtuse. Take your pick.

I've grown up in a fascist

I've grown up in a fascist dictatorship, followed by nazism, then communism and capitalism.

They all claimed to be "freedoms" and all promised "wealth and prosperity", but only delivered enslavement, poverty and destruction.

Good old Kredit's ideas would have fitted into all of them, as I've been writing about Harper for the past 20 odd years that I've seen his face and eyes under Totenkopf and Red Star caps.

The faithful are always the same people, regardless of religions and ideologies and because faith conquers all, especially logical thought. They must believe.

My mother was a very talented and intelligent person, until it came to royalty, who were next to divinity for her. She lived the last 37 years of her life in England , believing to her last minute that the PM visited the Queen every week to get her orders on what laws she wanted to pass.

There was absolutely no way convince her otherwise, as there's no way to wake up the faithful who sometimes frequent this blog with their "conservative " messages, with the real facts staring in their faces.

Ed Deak.

@skywalker

My point is that fewer and fewer enterprises can afford to employ Canadians - or fund Canadian living standards - anymore.

It's a GENERAL observation - there will be exceptions.

Kredit

Canadian wages have been stagnat for a long time as cost of living has skyrocketed. As well, your assertion Canadians are too expensive is absolutely ludicrous and based on nothing more than data you've made up in your mind. Our wages are no different than any otehr developed nation.

Also Kredit

It's a well known and EASILY attainable fact that corporations in Canada are currently making more money than ever before.

Again, Kredit

Did you read the story the other day? If it's about Canadians being too expensive, why are Chinese companies using Chinese workers in Fiji?

Kredit

"The bottom line is that the governments - with ballooning budget deficits - are soooo very desperate for revenue that they will sell anything at all for any possible income at all...

I think we can all agree on that..."

Yes, but that was because of choices made. The books were balanced or even in surplus both provincially and federally before harsher right-wing governments took over and ran both budgets into deficit.

Kredit

"My point is that fewer and fewer enterprises can afford to employ Canadians"

Not true at all as jamez has pointed out.

Wages have been stagnant for decades. The amount of excess money sloshing around the Cdn corporate world is unprecedented and even Flaherty and the Bank of Canada have commented on it.

The problem is Canadians can't afford to work for what many companies are willing to pay. Bringing in foreign workers to do unskilled jobs so as to force labour rates even lower or force Canadians into unemployment is only making Canadians angrier.

Also Frank, as I said before

The mines claim to be paying MORE than the average wage and are legally supposed to only pay 15 per cent less to recup costs, which should be illegal. So, Kredit's point about Canadians being too expensive is BS.

And Kredit my point is that...

..we don't have to follow the same idiot political ideology here in Canada. Isn't that why we live in Canada because it has a better standard of living. Now why is that? Well for one it is because we once had governments with the belief that the resources were owned by the people. That may well have been before we let the blood sucking globalization wingnuts take over, but that was the way it was. Along came the Greedy Global Corporatists who were perfectly content to take away from the people and accumulate more wealth than they ever imagined. You know, "Wealth can not be created, only taken". So now it all goes to a few and the rest of us are bombarded with economic BS propaganda that tells us we can't pay decent wages, we (well the peasants anyway) need to work for less, we need to pay more for social services and all this shite comes from the CEO making millions in salary every year. It also comes from the paid hacks in the Harper government and the rich morons that own the mainstream media.

I don't buy into that nonsense and it gets tiresome reading stuff from you that doesn't make a lick of sense. It can be changed. All it takes is some political smarts and a decent federal government. Otherwise, if we believe as you do, we may just as well kiss the country and all that we hold dear, goodbye!

I doubt anyone wants to live in a constant struggle being the worker bees for the few fat queen bees at the top.

I think what we can agree on

Is that our interlocutor, Kreditanstalt, really hasn't got a point.

Furthermore, the objective of lowering living standards - which are already under threat - ought to be ruled out of order under first principles.

Bringing the whole world down to the level of a rural peasant in China shouldn't be anyone's motto.

Did I really say that, G West?

"...the objective of lowering living standards..."?

"Bringing the whole world down to the level of a rural peasant in China..."?

What? Did I advocate that? I don't think anyone here wants that.

What I AM trying to say is that it's happening, it will continue to happen, and there's nothing governments can do about it.

We see lower living standards already...in the numbers dependent on government cheques. The number of government employees. Budget deficits. Failing small businesses. "McJobs". Slumping export markets. Student loan levels. Slowing home sales. Young people living with their parents. A zero savings rate.

While most people are living under the delusion that we live in a "capitalist" economy, the sheer volume of central planner and central bank ("central printers") manipulations in the market economy - coupled with insolvent governments - show that these are the effects of government interference in the economy.

Key point: if governments try to further regulate or manipulate, rig or fix wages, prices, hiring or firing it ALWAYS has unintended adverse side effects!

Go find a FREE MARKET solution.

Free market solutions?

Someone hasn't been paying attention. You are sitting here defending a company trying to SKIRT the free market. You don't even know what you're syaing half the tiome, do you? And do you really believe that globalization WON'T drag living standards down more? You're just talking outta your tuba blower

Did you advocate that?

Actually you did. You make comments that are pretty clear. Possibly you are just interested in being an agitator but your comments, if taken as "the Queen's English" say that exactly. If Canadian labour wages are not sustainable according to you and you support importing cheaper Chinese labour then the end result is exactly as G West says. The lowest common denominator or the "adverse side effect" are the result. That you flippantly call them "adverse side effects" as though they are from some medication necessary to sustain health is an indication that you live in some dream world, the illusion of the Free Market.

We do live in a capitalist economy that has no restrictions that normally are the function of borders. To be able to manage an economy so that the population derives the benefit you need borders that have meaning. The people through their government need to be able to manage the level of "free market" disease for the people's benefit. Anything else is feeding the greedy corporate interests at the expense of people and we already see the effects of that.

If there is nothing governments can do about it then we are all screwed and you're helping it happen. That is not an acceptable outcome. If the government won't tackle the problem, we'll change the bastards until they do starting with the Harperites.

jamez

In a FREE MARKET, companies would have the right to hire exactly who they want.

They wouldn't have interference from border-controlling governments, artificial minimum wages, dictation of working conditions without regard to business conditions, hiring restrictions, union-protecting legislation or firing restrictions...

No, kred

"In a FREE MARKET, companies would have the right to hire exactly who they want."

No they would not, because about a MILLION other things concerning nationality, national security and such. You know would the world would become? A fiefdom. You desperately need to leave Canada and see what life is like in such places, I have and it is awful I can promise you in those places you don't hear people squaking about "God damn unions" and such. They'd give anything to have someone looking out for them.

And while we're on the subject. Unions are a beautiful example of capitalism. It's a bunch of people getting together to get a better deal, nothing is more capitalist than that. Yet all the big business people who think they and they alone have some god given right to wealth seem to act like unions are somehow an affront to capitalism, when they are actually an example of it at its best.

@ Kreditanstalt

This is EXACTLY what you wrote dude:

Due to expectations around living standards here, Canadian labour is not economical; the alternative would be for the resources to stay in the ground, no tax revenue and no one to do anything.

I simply extrapolated that 'thought' and extended it to its logical conclusion - you're the one who's always making Asian comparisons my friend. You shouldn't be too surprised when your attitudes and preferences come back and bite you in the ass.

Merry Christmas!

There's no free lunch, no

There's no free lunch, no free enterprise , no free trade, and no free markets. These are all propaganda buzzwords for special interest crooks to take control and establish dictatorships.

The nazis started and fought WW2 for the defence of "freedom, and Western civilization". So have the Soviets and the Maoists, now replaced by the stockmarkets.

How in hell can any fool talk about "free markets" ,when a few multinational corporations control the world's food supplies and economies , under hundreds of names.

Nestle has some 400 cover names, so are Philip Morris, Gree Giant, Jimmy Pattison, not to mention Cargill in control of the world's grain supplies etc. etc.

Somebody must really be a mindless "conservative" even to talk about "free markets" and the rest of the fraud enslaving humanity.

How many thousands of private enterprises were wiped out in Canada alone, with the "free trade" rackets destroying everything ?

Ed Deak.